Good fences make good neighbors…and great desktops! Cloudeight freeware picks

By | April 9, 2011
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“…There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’…”

(“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost)

No other Windows newsletter introduces you to as much culture as this one, except “The Oyster Weekly”; their pearls of wisdom are quite cultured. But for a couple of old cruds like us, we do our best to keep you awake, entertained and informed.

(What’s that? We put you to sleep? Really? We drone? Do we? What do you say EB, do I put you to sleep? I knew you would say yes. You’re just contrary!)

Digressing…we try hard to keep you up to speed on the latest and greatest while also trying to keep you safe with pithy pearls we parlay into prolonged pontifications penned by none other than good old TC and EB. With the Internet running full speed ahead into the cloud, it becomes more of a challenge each week to find really good freeware. Each week it takes us longer to come up with a good freeware program for you. But we usually come through for you.

This week we’ve gone the extra mile and found a freeware program that is not only different but fun and useful too. And even the newest and most timid user will be able to figure out how to use this program in a jiffy. Even the newest computer can understand why it would be useful.

Face it. Most computer desktops are a messy menagerie of mostly unused icons that sit there soaking up screen space creating a caliginous clutter of unnecessary icons – blights upon that beautiful wallpaper of a grove of Sheridan sheep grazing on a grassy knoll and wallowing in the autumn mist in land called Anna Lee. Then one day it happened, you couldn’t find the icon you wanted. You sigh and head for the fridge, where you extract a cold Guinness and break open a fresh bag of greasy Fritos and flip on American Idol hoping they don’t end up with all male finalists again this year.

There’s a solution other than hiding all those icons or spending a week removing them. You don’t have to put up with that messy mass of mingled icons any longer. It’s time you put up fences (no, EB, not to keep the lolling sheep out – but to keep the Guinness in!). Fences keep things in and keep things out. But the Fences we refer to keep things from getting messy. By fencing off your icons you keep them in groups – just like a farm. You got cows in one pen, pigs in another, bison in another, EB in another, chickens in another and so forth. If you want EB you don’t have to root through the pigs to find her. Or if you feel like a steak you don’t have to sort through the chickens to sizzle a succulent sirloin. Got it?

OK. It’s the time you all have come to know and love – the time we introduce the developer and allow him to tell you about his or her or their program. Trust us – you won’t hear anymore about pigs, cows, ducks, chicken, sheep, bison or EB. The developer will give you nothing but the facts, ma’am (and sir):

“What Is Fences?

Fences® is a program that helps you organize your desktop, and can hide your icons when they’re not in use. A “Fence”, a term coined by this program, is an icon group on your desktop. Fences is an add-on to your desktop, not a replacement.

Basic Features

Rope off your desktop

Fences allows you to create shaded areas on your desktop that you can place icons in. You can label them however you wish, and move/resize them anywhere on the desktop. Pre-included layouts help speed the process for new users.

See your wallpaper again!

Quickly hide & show all your icons with an easy double-click
Double click blank space on your desktop, and all your icons will fade out. Double click again, and they’ll return. We think this feature is so useful and unique, that we’ve applied for a patent on it. You can even pick icons and individual Fences to exclude!

Create snapshots, and have automatic scaling (for screen size changes)

Take and restore snapshots of your Fence layouts for backup, or for when you are doing different tasks. Change your resolultion (sic) for playing games and Fences will keep them in the same relative spots. In the Pro version of Fences, the “snapshot” feature has been enhanced to automatically take and keep recent snapshots on hand, ensuring your desktop layout never gets lost.”

You want to see a video of Fences in action?

An now it’s time to say goodbye to our freeware pick. Our freeware pick this week is “Fences”. They have a free version (and it’s great) and a “Pro” version for those who want professional fences, I guess. Go forth and fence yourself off from EB and TC. Go ahead. You won’t hurt our feelings.

The gory details:

Fences
Windows XP, Windows Vista, Window 7 (32bit/64bit)
Unique desktop icon organizer
9.04MB Windows exe file

2 thoughts on “Good fences make good neighbors…and great desktops! Cloudeight freeware picks

  1. Mikeal Foy

    Thank you for the information you both give all of us. Both EB and TC are very good in finding programs that are useful and sometimes just plain fun to use. Fences are very useful to seeing the specific folders, files and links I have on my desktop. Thanks again for your continued effort in making the PC fun and useful for all.

    Reply
  2. Ken Roberts

    They never fail to give and giving is what makes the human a human. Thank you for the freeware .

    Reply

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